Here, the checks and inhibitions are easily accomplished, unless disease in some manner prevents them; but there are strong indications that a "spirit" -- at least when communicating -- cannot control his stream of thinking to the same extent; and that, if it is constantly interrupted -- by questions, etc., as it usually is -- it tends to break up and become automatic, echolalic, or useless.

Since there are activities that aren't perseverative and speech that isn't echolalic, I suppose a warrior mom would be struggling mightily to erase the "bad" and bring out the minimal amount of "good" behaviors.

In fact, John himself is the most interesting thing in it, and he is an echolalic simpleton who occasionally breaks up his mimicked conversation with the initially gnomic and yet thereafter quickly uncompelling information that there are, "Some things I know and some things I don't."